


Come What May

by Firedawn (Serpyre)



Category: Atypical (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, F/F, Homophobia, Izzie-centric, also Izzie getting annoyed at human beings in general though, and uneducated people, light humour, some internalized homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-24
Updated: 2019-11-24
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:01:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21549574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Serpyre/pseuds/Firedawn
Summary: “So, Izzie, what do you think about the gays?”It’s so immediate and direct and out-of-the-blue that Izzie lets out a disbelieving splutter.What?Or, Izzie is normal to the world, when she is not.
Relationships: Casey Gardner & Izzie, Casey Gardner/Izzie
Comments: 22
Kudos: 232





	Come What May

Izzie was normal. Or, at least, she was as normal as she could present herself to be; being on a scholarship to Clayton, she had to be everything the girls there were; athletic, smart, pretty, normal.

She had blended in. She succeeded—maybe a little too well, in fact. Before she’d known it she had practically become the most popular kid in Clayton. She’d always have squads to swing and sit by during lunch. Her posse was the track girls, and they revolved around her like her very own harem; Penepole would go straight for her whenever she was melting over a new boy, or Sadie would find her after-class to vent to Izzie all about how Maths was seriously burning her brain; and Nat would always ring her up first for a party.

It was nice, in some ways; she was relieved that she hadn’t needed to deal with _social problems_ in addition to the mounting pile nurtured at home.

But it also meant that extraordinarily jerkish boys suddenly became the nicest guys there were. Nat would swoon over how the hot guys were now all over her, and whenever she pointed out their assholery, she’d respond with a non-affirmative: “but he’s cute though.”

Izzie didn’t get it.

There _were_ nice guys. Actual kind dudes, not the “nice guy” kind. To be honest, Nate was her friend because he was less jerkish—and misogynistic—than the others. She’d thought that maybe with him, she could have a truly normal school life.

There was just one kink in that.

Izzie was not straight. Far from it.

She’d known since she was little. Izzie remembered turning on the TV and being struck in awe by the models dotting the screen, in Victoria Secret ads, in every kind of girl there. _She’s so pretty,_ Izzie had furiously swooned, scribbling all over her notebook. She always wanted to be _best_ friends with Selena, though she could never figure out the nagging, firey feeling _why._ Or why she got irrationally unhappy every time she saw her being all giggly with Jacob.

She’d known. But after coming to Clayton, she’d stuffed it all down, deeper and deeper down until she couldn’t see it anymore. That wasn’t who she needed to be—right now. Right now, she needed to be normal, and it _was_ working. She was popular. Everyone liked her. She was normal.

But terrifyingly, Izzie wasn’t like the other girls. That was what she would tell herself, and in some ways, it was true: Penelope could crash her fancy car and it wouldn’t matter. Quinn could get wasted without care. But she _was_ like the other girls. Popular, smart, athletic, pretty. Intelligent and cool. Sometimes bitchy and jealous when need be. 

But she wasn’t like the other girls, because, well, she liked the other girls.

_._

The first time she hears something is when she’s changing in the locker room with her teammates.

Her teammates are kind; they are nice, and Penepole never fails to go off weird little rabbit holes that guaranteed her laugh—but they weren’t people she could relate to. Especially when all of them went off about boys and while it was initially amusing to hear about Penepole’s failing love life and Natasha’s budding romances, it was honestly tiring after the hundredth, maybe thousandth, uncountable time.

So Izzie doesn’t really hear what they say when her track team goes off into a discussion in the locker rooms. She’d tuned out, and it’s only when her name’s said that her head snaps up.

“So, Izzie, what do you think about the gays?”

It’s so immediate and direct and out-of-the-blue that she lets out a disbelieving splutter of _what?_

Penepole, unnoticing and unsuspicious and undeterred, speaks on like she’s educating Izzie on something really important. “You know, those really girly guys and super-masculine girls? They’re not all like that, but most of them are. That are into the same gender?”

Izzie stares. Hard. She studies Penepole’s face, scrutinizing for the crinkle in her eyes or her bit lip that would tell her it was a joke.

Unfortunately, no.

Words surface from her throat to her mouth; the only thing she can think of along the lines of _I’m gay, I know what gay people are._ But when she snaps back into consciousness, remembers where they are, she lops off the beginning, and then it turns into: “I know what gay people are.”

And she winces. She just managed to make herself sound as straight as possible.

Penepole nods along, not really hearing her, and it twinges on her. It twinges her nerves more than she expects it would. “So? What do you think, Izzie?”

Izzie tries to keep her cool. She’s the captain, she reminds herself. She will not start yelling at her teammates. “I don’t see a problem,” she says, shrugs, even though her throat’s so pitifully hoarse, pitifully tight. That’s not what she wanted to say. The only thing she wanted to say. But she pushes it back, swallows her words. _No, not here._

“I dunno,” Penepole continues on like she’s off into her own world. “They’re, like, bare-naked and flashing rainbows on the street right now.” She turns towards Sadie. “It looked fun and all, but it gets really annoying after the first five days!”

Izzie’s words don’t form. She wouldn’t know where to _start_ , from everything about categorising her and her people into two stereotypes, to boil them down to being _bare-naked_ and _rainbow-flashers_. In the end, she gets to say nothing when Natasha clears her throat, as if something intellectual has appeared in her mind, and speaks up.

“Gay people are great and all, but I think that they’re just a little… unusual, don’t you think?” Natasha says to Izzie like it’s a secret they’re sharing. Izzie’s mouth is dry, even when all she wants to do is to snap back, _am I weird, then?_ A braver her would.

“Guys I get! That’s so fucking _hot_!” Nat says giddily, expectantly, like the rest of the room would break into murmurs of agreement. To Izzie’s horror, they did.

“But, like, lesbians?” Nat makes a face. “I don’t get what they find attractive about baby-faces. If they wanna date girls that look like guys, then they should kind of just date guys, don’t you think?”

“That’s… not how it works,” is all Izzie manages to say, when Penepole juts in.

“Well, I think it’s more like, a feminist thing,” Penepole says this like she’s too proud of making such an observation, and Izzie doesn’t know where this’s gonna go until she _does,_ and _oh god please don’t—_ but of course it does. “Guys, like, suck sometimes, right? And a girl that likes them—who doesn’t want the suckiness to go along with it—will probably find another girl because they _understand_ each other, that looks like a guy.”

Izzie often doesn’t understand how logic takes rollercoasters, but now that she’s got a first-class ticket along the ride, she does. And she is very, very, impressed by the mind-contortions that could rival her internally-homophobic-self’s mind.

But before she could shut down the conversation before she learnt just how many of her teammates were ignorant and passively homophobic, Sadie yelps and goes: “Guys, it’s four-thirty, we’re so late to training. Coach’s gonna have our asses!”

The rest of her team shuffles out and Izzie’s words rescind back into her throat. It pains Izzie. It pains her that she can’t speak up. But the conversation’s quelled and she thinks, even if they let her speak, she probably wouldn’t say anything. Pretty tragic. She’s supposed to be normal. She can’t be anything but that in Clayton.

Penepole’s the last to go. Izzie catches up to her. Narrowing her brow, like she’s only just curious as if she’s not feeling dread at all, Izzie says: “How did this even come up?”

Penepole gives a halfway shrug. “Oh, you know. We were talking about lesbians in the locker room.”

.

Next things she hears are words. Around her; during classes, breaks, lunches, beside lockers. Snippets of conversation. Passerby words. Whispers and rumours.

“That was hot, you and Kate last night,” and there’s a smattering of hoots, a tiny giggle from the girl, and sounds of high-five smacks. Izzie pulls the straps of her bag tighter and walks on.

Izzie hangs out with Nate and his rowdy boys and always they’d hurl into derisive slang, talking shit about each other, about their opponents in the football team. “That’s so gay, dude,” and she knows they don’t mean anything by it, but.

“I don’t get why she doesn’t like me,” she hears a guy whine, and the other guy says, snorting, “She’s probably a lesbian,” and his tongue curls on the _l_ so that Izzie’s stomach goes cold and she reminds herself he isn’t talking about her.

Izzie thinks that it’s been here since she came, but it’s now that her feelings go beyond being just miffed. She feels a feeling she’d rather pretend doesn’t exist, and pushing everything else down, she pushes a smile up.

.

They have an "educated discussion" about homosexuality in English class.

The entire was reading and discussing the overly-masculine main character in a book when the words come out of nowhere; _“… he’s strong, in contrast to, like, gay men…”_ and Izzie, zoning out by then, starts.

The teacher nods with a _go, on, elaborate._ They talk about how gay men are mostly effeminate and do the hand-gestures to accompany it, and they barely even touch on butch lesbians but from what Izzie hears it’s enough to rile her stomach. Everyone else on the spectrum isn’t even discussed and there’s so much _wrong_ to it that Izzie wants to scream.

But she doesn’t get to speak because every single time she’s just interrupted. The boys and girls raise their hands one-after-another to discuss, and by the time five minutes have passed, Izzie has already reached her boiling point.

A hand goes up. “Yes, Maureen?” The girl turns to the boy to respond, and says: “I mean, I think—they dress like that because they are confident in their sexuality,” the girl says, proudly, “and those who don’t aren’t as confident.”

Izzie wants to smack the girl upside the head. She toys with the idea in her head. In some other world, she’d raise her hand, her teacher would say _yes, Izzie?_ and she’d look straight at the girls and she’ll say _I’m gay. I’m gay and that’s a pretty shitty thing to say about me, isn’t it?_

And when the teacher adjourns and goes "thanks class, that was an informative discussion," Izzie can’t help but feel angry and defeated.

_Oh my god, it so wasn’t._

.

The third time, it’s after track practice. It was an exhausting session that day; Izzie had pushed them all because of that upcoming competition with Newton; she wasn’t about to let them lose to that second-rate school. But it’d made all the girls grumble and they’d left as quick as possible, even though they’d usually spend at least another good thirty minutes spilling the latest tea, leaving only Izzie and Nat in the locker room.

Nat’s buzzing on about some dating drama, and Izzie can’t really keep up. “Who’s dating who, now?” Izzie says, feigning half-interest because if she wants to retain her popularity, she has to at least listen in to things like that.

“Nobody.” Nat doesn’t even blink as she sticks her uniform in her locker. But then, she looks back at Izzie, amused. “But _you_ should really spill the tea on that.”

“What?”

Nat grins slyly like she’s just discovered something juicy to pounce on. Izzie’s heart jumps— _what, what do they know?_ “Everyone thinks you and Nate would make such a power couple.”

“We would?” Izzie’s throat is hoarse. Her eyes blink of their own accord; she’s not sure if she’s hearing right. Her. Nate. Her and Nate dating. Her and Nate kissing. Her stomach shrinks in, and Izzie has to fight back the urge to throw up. 

“Yeah! You guys hang out so much together!” Her eyes narrow. Then, a grin slowly forms. “There’s something going on, isn’t there?” Nat grins with catlike glee like she’s cracked the code in Izzie’s head. She squeals before Izzie can say anything back, and goes: “Oh my god! You’ll both be the hottest couple here.”

“Wait—“ she says weakly.

“No need to say anything. I get it. This is so exciting!” Then, yelling into her phone, she screams: “Oh my god! I confirmed it! Our celibate captain is actually dating Nate!”

Izzie can hear faint shrieks on the other end. There’s a part of her that really, _really_ wants to slap Nat. It would happen in another world. But something in her withers on the inside.

 _I’m… gay, not celibate._ But it dies in her throat once again, and Izzie takes her bag and leaves her track-team to their fantasies.

.

“Are you dating Nate?” her younger brother asks her in that childishly inflated tone, the day after she hung out with Nate for the entirety of yesterday. Izzie would roll her eyes during other times, but right now, she heaves out a breath.

In some ways, Nate’s nice. He’s not that much of an asshole. She watches him play video-games some nights and he lets her sleepover whenever she needs to. She never tells him why, of course, and he doesn’t ask. They’re friends; they fool around and Izzie laughs, sometimes, when she’s with him. She’s seen Nate eat the most disgusting shit in the world and he’s seen her do the same, and seeing him try to swallow a baby squid he’s firmly cemented in the _friends_ area.

But her friends don’t see that. They just see her and Nate exchange repartee in the corridors and when she tells them _oh, I was at Nate’s for the night,_ they assume it’s for the sex and not because she has to get away from her mom and her deadbeat boyfriend. And now that they think they’re dating…

It’s not that bad of an idea. Come to think about it. Soon, there’ll be rumours circulating through the school, rumours about her. Why she doesn’t date. The whispers in the corridor won’t be about other people anymore; they’ll be about her. And she feels sick to the stomach thinking about what they’ll say; _lesbian, dyke, bitch, faggot_.

(In another world, she wouldn’t care. She’d be herself and she’d kiss whoever the fuck she wanted and everyone’s opinions would matter as much as dust did. But that’s not her. That’ll never be her.)

It’s one thing to be gay; it’s a whole another thing to be out, and Izzie’s nowhere near _ready_ to deal with that. And Nate…

Well. It’s not like she couldn’t see herself with him.

“Do you think we should date?” Izzie asks her younger brother as if his opinion matters. Her stomach’s sinking further, twisting into knots, and Izzie doesn’t know if it’s because of the idea or of what’ll happen if she _doesn’t_.

“You will be a good couple,” her younger brother tells her and turns back to his book.

So, the day after, she walks up to Nate and asks him out on a date. He accepts in an instant.

(Izzie tries not to think about the baby squid when he kisses her afterwards.)

.

Izzie dates Nate, and anything related to gayness in her head sinks to the back of her mind. If she doesn’t think about it, then maybe it’ll help. Maybe it wouldn’t matter. She wouldn’t feel nothing inside of her when he kisses her. She wouldn’t feel the urge to snark off to her teammates when they ask her about her sex life. Maybe she’ll stop thinking about girls entirely.

Everything she’d noticed so starkly before just fades away. Chatters in the corridors fade into nothingness. Words passed between her teammates are static in her head. Izzie cuts herself off from anything that isn’t straight. She tells herself: _I’m with Nate. That doesn’t relate to me._

It’s normal. She’s normal, she thinks. She just has to graduate, and maybe then, she can be less normal then. But right now, she’s normal, just as how her teammates are normal, like how her world’s normal. That’s how she’ll thrive.

~~ (It’s a lie. It’s all a lie. Like how her life’s a lie, acting _normal,_ but she can’t admit that to herself yet.) ~~

She might like girls, but she loves Nate a whole lot more, and that’s what really matters.

.

She sees Casey, and thinks, _fuck_.

.

.

.

.

.

Izzie was normal. In some ways, she is. She’s pretty, smart, athletic. She gets the grades and she’s the popular girl. She's a bitch when need be and sometimes a little jealous. She doesn't take anyone's shit and she's pretty cool, if she does say so herself.

She’s as normal as she can be; as normal as she can be, being herself. In those ways; she isn’t normal—whatever _normal_ even means. There are whispers in the corridors; they still bother her, sometimes. She gets glares from her ex-boyfriend. Nat and Penepole don’t discuss anything about relationships with her anymore. And sometimes, she thinks about how much easier it’d be if she were normal.

Maybe it would be easier. Maybe her life would be. Maybe if she were really Izzie, the straight girl with her boyfriend, who’s happy and content with her life. But—but, that’s not her. She’s not normal in that way, and she’s done pretending she is. And she’s accepted—well, still _accepting—_ what it means; she doesn’t know what to say to her mom, her siblings, to the rest of the world. It’ll be hard and she’s _terrified_ in many ways.

(But it turns out, the Izzie from the other world _is_ still her. She just needs time to manifest.)

Everything's scary. But it's scary and intoxicating and _new_ and Izzie realises she's in love. She's alive when their mouths meet and her stomach knots with butterflies. She feels giddy whenever _Casey_ even crosses her mind and then she'll fumble with whatever she's doing for the next fifteen minutes. She wants to hold Casey's hand every day, she wants to be with her for the rest of the day and she'll forget the world around them.

(She won't tell Casey that, obviously. Newton'll tease her endlessly about it.)

Everyone else might still expect her to be normal. Might want her to be too. (She knows; she was one of them before.)

But she gets to kiss Casey every day after class, and she’s so glad she isn’t.

(Come what may, she thinks. She'll deal with it. It won't be easy. But damned if she let herself be normal anymore.)

**Author's Note:**

> This was half-inspired from things that actually happened irl. ~~like I'm extrapolating things from my life whoops~~. Mainly when people think you're straight and say things when you're just... not, lmao. Did anything happen like that in your lives? Please feel free to share :')
> 
> This started off as, basically, "Izzie being annoyed at straight people", but morphed halfway through. I feel like Izzie would have to deal with a lot of internalized homophobia (which we saw in S3, even after somewhat accepting herself), which was why I explored a little bit of that here. 
> 
> I would love to hear what you thought! I'm also on Tumblr as [@fireserpyre](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/fireserpyre) /@firedawnd, I'd love to talk to everyone! :)


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